Simple Life

Everywhere we turn there are funny examples of misuse of the English language.  In posting these pictures please know I am not making fun - I love that there is any English here, correct or not.  Being able to read something every now and then creates a sense of being at home mixed with, "Look Ma!  I did it!"  So, here are some shirts, signs, and food products we've seen recently.  Not all of them quite hit the mark - but I think I know what they meant, most of the time. A shirt on a student.  What? Handsome Boy Makeup Factory - or in other words, Barber Shop.  Clear message - just missing a letter. "Love your the smile."   What else is there to say? I love snow clab.  It's way better than snow crab. When I'm looking for a beverage I don't want wonderful, fabulous, fresh, invigorating.  I want satisfactory.  I have low standards that way. I love, love, love this little guy.  I'm sad for him - that at t

What do you love about you?  I grew up believing a romantic notion that in order to love others you must first love yourself.  Throughout my life I have gone back to that thought - gone around and around it - sometimes believing it, other times doubting it and seeing all the holes in the logic behind it - if there is any.  Wether or not it holds any water at all, it made me seek something within myself to love when I didn't think there was anything there.  I couldn't imagine the bitter coldness of a life lived without loving others.  I love loving. I love providing and caring, and to not be able to do that because of all the love lost between me and I just didn't work for me. So I sought, and I found.  There are a few things about me that I love.  I wish there were more - I wish that I didn't have an equal or larger list of gripes.  But, I suppose that keeps me real.  I will never mistake myself for perfect or even close.  I will never see myself as a completed project.

During a visit to a doctor in 2005 I was verbalizing the struggles I was having being a stay home mom of two small children.  Lily was maybe 3 years old and Jaxon was 18 or 19 months.  This doctor, she wasn't my regular doctor or even someone I knew.  Her suggestion was pills.  Anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication.  I accepted, said I'd give them a shot, and thus began a relationship I never thought I'd have. In hindsight, I can pick apart that whole doctor visit.  I didn't know this woman and her immediate answer to my blues was medication.  There was no suggestion of sunlight, exercise, dietary change, time out doing adult things, nothing.  Just the magic and quick answer of pills.  Maybe she should have made other suggestions. Maybe she should have recommended that I see my regular doctor or talk with someone that I knew for more than 5 minutes.  I am to blame too - maybe I should have asked more questions.  Maybe I should have thought long-term.  Yes, the q

Not all that long ago I posted a picture of a car that looked like a mini Hummer with a caption joking that everything in Japan is smaller.  People are smaller, therefore clothes are smaller.  Homes, cars, furniture, dogs, they're all smaller here.  Even toothbrushes are smaller here.  I've looked everywhere - no large heads to be found...What's a girl gotta do to find a large head these days?  : ) Well, I spoke too soon.  There is one thing here in Japan that is larger than I'm used to.  And, really, it's quite an unfortunate thing in my opinion.  Bugs.  They are huge here. So huge, so gross.  Many of my students and friends here find my level of fear and disgust at the giant bugs quite humorous.  They are just a fact of life to most people...but to me, they are just so wrong... Cicadas These giant bugs fly around singing super loud.   They live in trees and bushes, and seem to dive for your head as you just walk down the street minding your own business.  T

Many people much wiser than myself have prophesied that the only constant in life is change.  These last few days have pretty much wrung me dry, and as a result, some of the people around me. This weekend was Lillian's 10 year old birthday celebration. We aren't home - in America - we're here where we don't have the same quality of friendship and family that we have previously experienced.  I felt so much pressure to make her weekend good - her 10th birthday, on the 10th of September - her Golden Birthday.  And, to my greatest and most unexpected pleasure, people rose to the occasion.  I never thought that the people that came out to celebrate Lillian and make her feel special would.  She received songs, hugs, and gifts from various people everywhere we went. She truly glowed each time.  At the end of Sunday night, the night before her true birthday, she went to bed happy.  So did I.  Thank you to everyone at home in America and here, at home in Japan, that made Lily&